3rd Trimester
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can you tell...
if you have dilated without getting an exam? I mean, can you 'feel' it? Also, I am almost 35 weeks and I have such inner thigh/groin pain. It's mostly just the left side. I'm assuming that is stretching of the ligaments to prepare for birth?
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Re: can you tell...
Yeah, you can do a self check, or have your SO do it for you if you can't reach that high anymore (I sure as sh*t cant lol) I would think you yourself would be able to feel it on your own, without internal examination, but I don't kno from experience.
There are a lot of other 'give away's tho. Changes in contractions (2-3 minutes apart usually correspond to dilation beyond 4cm), the height of the belly (at the beginning of labor, space between the bra line and uterus is about 5 fingers during contraction, at full dilation its only around 1 finger width), bloody show, "the bottom line", baby's heartbeat will move lower, water breaking, ultrasound, involuntary bowl movement, decent of the baby... There's no real need for internal measuring if you see other signs and know how to read them. And it's not like they're sticking a ruler up there, lol, it's all guess work anyway